Lost my first gig due to SAC

Discussions about the use and operation of SAC (Software Audio Console)

Re: Lost my first gig due to SAC

Postby Butch » Wed Aug 07, 2013 10:21 am

I have one promoter that thinks he HAS to meet every word of the rider
I still get many gigs with him but I have to jump through hoops every time
(Why do Christian acts have to be the biggest butt heads to deal with :protest: )

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Re: Lost my first gig due to SAC

Postby newmediamark » Wed Aug 07, 2013 5:03 pm

mycorn wrote:the odd bit here is that there
are so many totally clueless folks that work in the
booking/promotion segment of this industry

especially the "club/small festival" level...


Yeah, I keep forgetting about that.

Mark
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Re: Lost my first gig due to SAC

Postby randyhyde » Thu Aug 08, 2013 1:20 pm

newmediamark wrote:Where you advised as to which console met the artists approval?

There was no "artist approval" or even tech rider before I found out.
Last year, they had mostly local and regional acts playing. The sound was great, the artists were happy. I figured it would be more of the same.

And was the rest of the gear such as speaker enclosures and amplifiers of higher quality? If you have a positive history with the promoter, it doesn't make sense to me that they would not give you the option to provide a different console if it was only about that.

Mark


I have no idea what the winning bid looks like. I'll probably stop by the event to see what I lost to and check it out. It's hard to imagine anyone seriously beating my price with what I was providing (covered stage w/trussing, 65,000 watt sound system, under $3,000) but you never know. I believe I related my experience with one city where I quoted $1,250 for my A rig plus minimal lighting (illumination) for a 12-concert series and lost. The winning bid was $450/show. I can do SoS for that amount, but not much more.
Cheers,
Randy Hyde
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Re: Lost my first gig due to SAC

Postby IraSeigel » Thu Aug 08, 2013 4:21 pm

It just gives me the warm and fuzzies to know that I'm using a sound system that's costing the promoter $450, yet I have to pay $300 for a Yamaha CP300 and $250 for a drum kit.

Maybe you should provide backline instead.

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Re: Lost my first gig due to SAC

Postby newmediamark » Fri Aug 09, 2013 3:38 pm

I have a hard time understanding the extremely low pricing Randy frequently comments about, both bids to buyers and pay for his sound crew ... especially in S. Cal. Hey, I know it's tough out there and if I don't have to travel, I have helped out friends for free on a local basis. But if it's a paying, something just isn't right about these numbers I frequently hear.

One band I work for pays between $2500 and $3000 just for backline ... and the drummer owns the kit they haul around. That includes a large truck and delivery and set-up.

I can understand if it's some guy with a decent small PA and a few mics just trying to stay busy and feed his family and he can throw the stuff in his van, but not when staging and lighting and crew and trucks are involved.

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Re: Lost my first gig due to SAC

Postby randyhyde » Mon Aug 12, 2013 3:37 pm

newmediamark wrote:I have a hard time understanding the extremely low pricing Randy frequently comments about, both bids to buyers and pay for his sound crew ... especially in S. Cal. Hey, I know it's tough out there and if I don't have to travel, I have helped out friends for free on a local basis. But if it's a paying, something just isn't right about these numbers I frequently hear.

One band I work for pays between $2500 and $3000 just for backline ... and the drummer owns the kit they haul around. That includes a large truck and delivery and set-up.

I can understand if it's some guy with a decent small PA and a few mics just trying to stay busy and feed his family and he can throw the stuff in his van, but not when staging and lighting and crew and trucks are involved.

Mark


Sometimes I have a hard time understanding, too.... :)

I do know this, though, in my area I've raised the prices about as much as I can for the types of clients I work with. Once in a while, when working with a "big" promoter, I get the "wow, that's cheap" vibe from them. But for the most part, I've pushed my prices to the point I've stopped getting gigs as a result of the price.

Keep in mind that 95% of the work I do consists of local and regional acts for municipalities, shopping centers, hospitals, and stuff like that. I've done some work for the Ontario Citizen's Bank Arena (outdoors in the parking lot, not inside the arena itself; they were one of the "this is a good price" clients).

I've seen lots of $5,000-$10,000 jobs around my area. I'd have to take the company to the next level (with an investment of about $250,000 in gear) to get those kinds of jobs. As this is still a hobby for me and will never pay the salary I make as a software engineer, there is no way I could justify taking my company to the next level. Indeed, right now I want to finish off my "B" rig, get some more mics, replace SAC, and then I'll probably be happy for a very long time.

BTW, I don't know what the eventual price of the gig I lost was, but I suspect it was higher than what I was charging (or they're not providing a covered stage). That was clearly a case of the artist (Charlie Worsham [sp?], I believe) not wanting to take a chance on SAC.
Cheers,
Randy Hyde
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Re: Lost my first gig due to SAC

Postby randyhyde » Fri Aug 16, 2013 11:49 am

randyhyde wrote:I believe I related my experience with one city where I quoted $1,250 for my A rig plus minimal lighting (illumination) for a 12-concert series and lost. The winning bid was $450/show. I can do SoS for that amount, but not much more.
Cheers,
Randy Hyde


I actually went to the last concert in this series last night to see what I lost to.
I also went because the band that was playing last night was the same one with the band engineer from hell that I had three weeks ago (the guy that tripped all the breakers on my generator).

I know, sour grapes, but the sound system really sucked. However, the promoter was praising the sound company during announcements time, so he must have been happy (and, in the end, that's all that really counts).

As for the band's engineer, wow. I really thought that smiley-face EQing went away once people moved beyond a stereo system. There was a *big* hole between 250Hz and 1KHz. My wife was complaining the whole night about the singer sounding like he was in a tube. The system consisted of (IIRC) four MacroTech 3500 amps running four dual 18" subs and four dual 15" + horn cabinets. The claim is that they were "Proprietary JBL cabinets" (which I interpret to mean home-built cabinets with JBL drivers; see attached pix); granted, they didn't sound very good when playing CD tracks prior to the show, but it was really terrible when the band was playing. Given that this guy really messed up the EQ when he did the show with me, I'm beginning to think that he has a big problem with EQ. Maybe his ears are really sensitive to mid-range frequencies, I don't know, but when the HF material rips my ears off I really feel sorry for people who can really hear those frequencies. Given that this is the second show where I've seen this guy do a really bad system EQ, I'd have to guess that the sound engineer is a good friend (or family member) of the band. I suspect the house engineer could do a better job in most cases. Granted, part of the problem was the sound system itself, and the engineer was clipping those MacroTech amps at least once per second, but taking a little power out of the highs and putting it into the mids would have been a good tradeoff. I remember the BE griping about how he needed twice the system when working on my system. I wonder what he was thinking last night (as the system was about 1/3 of what my system is).

At least the BE didn't trip any breakers last night :). OTOH, even with the amps clipping, the volume was too low at about 150' from the stage (where I was sitting; I was scared to get close after my experience with him three weeks prior).

Oh well, even with the crappy sound system, I don't see how anyone could have done this (sound + truss + 8 PAR 64 cans) for $450/show. Even if the sound system sounded like it was only worth $400/show :) As I mentioned, though, the promoter was praising the sound company so he couldn't have been too unhappy. Not even sure if it's worth my while to bid on the show next year. Even with my B rig I couldn't afford to do this show for a whole lot less than twice what they where paying this year.
Cheers,
Randy Hyde
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Re: Lost my first gig due to SAC

Postby Craig » Fri Aug 16, 2013 12:19 pm

You lost the bid because you don't have a basketball goals attached to your rack and stage.
-Craig
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Re: Lost my first gig due to SAC

Postby IraSeigel » Fri Aug 16, 2013 12:28 pm

Well. maybe you can think of it this way:

The sound company guy can take the $450 and pay for his gear, fuel, operator(s), etc. He can use all the kudos from the promoter to pay his mortgage/rent and food and utilities and health for his family.
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Re: Lost my first gig due to SAC

Postby soundguy » Fri Aug 16, 2013 2:46 pm

randyhyde wrote:I actually went to the last concert in this series last night to see what I lost to.
I also went because the band that was playing last night was the same one with the band engineer from hell that I had three weeks ago (the guy that tripped all the breakers on my generator).


As we discussed before, the band engineer you seem to dislike did nothing wrong. If breakers tripped, it was because the power distribution was poorly designed, and based on your comments in a previous thread, you seemed to be unaware of how much current your amps could draw. If you don't like the guy's style ... fair enough, but it's your responsibility to provide robust enough power D.

And I notice that your favorite band engineer was working this weekend ... apparently on a system that did not trip breakers. Your system that blows breakers is not working.

Soundguy
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